Recipes and news from the makers of Zest Recipe Manager

Hello! it’s been seriously icy in Sydney these past few days and coupled with nursing a cold, I am hibernating indoors and have cancelled all social engagements for today. Self imposed hibernation is sometimes very enjoyable amidst a busy life – indulging in normal household activities means more engagement with bub and not just trying to rush from one thing to the next, ticking off a never ending checklist of things to do. So in the blissful mundaneness of the day, I got to show Miss One how to take the laundry out of the washing machine and help me with the hanging on the clothes line. Her very important job was to hand me the pegs – this consisted of walking back and forth from the bucket, transporting one peg at a time. She is my hardworking little helper!

As I watch her toddle back inside with the bucket of pegs swinging on her arm, I am just filled with love, pride and amazement at just how quickly this little girl is learning and growing up. I just wish I could freeze moments like that and store them for the rainy days in life.

So what do we need to top up a day of domestic bliss? Some baked goods of course!

There’s a ripe pear in the fruit bowl, an open carton of buttermilk in the fridge that needs using and the pack of sultanas that Miss One has smuggled out of the pantry (yes she knows how to open it now and has recognised which packet holds the coveted treats). So I decided to make the little Miss a sweet but healthy muffin with these ingredients for our afternoon tea.

Muffins are such magical things – it feels like you can just pick a favourite combination of ingredients, add flour, some kind of fat (oil or butter), egg, some sweetness and voila! 9.5 times out of 10, it’s a tasty treat! And they are also quick to put together – so easy that I was able to whip up a batch during bub’s nap today which is like being in a Masterchef challenge, only you have no idea when George is going to say “time’s up, step away from your benches”!

These days with priority directed towards nourishing a growing child, my muffins have taken on a more healthy tone so oats and coconut oil make regular appearances and here they are again in today’s creations. The pear was prepared two ways for a reason, not just to make life complicated – 1) the grated pear to give the muffin its moistness and 2) the chunks for bursts of pear flavour (of course Miss One picked out all the chunks to eat first). And one more tip before I give you the recipe – soaking the sultanas in hot water makes them nice and plump.

These muffins took a little longer than I expected and I suspect it was because of the slightly wetter mixture with the grated pear but the result was a nice moist cake. It’s probably not as sweet as most muffins but I think it is sweet enough, especially with the bursts of sultanas and pear chunks. Also I don’t want little Miss getting used to anything too sweet but if you do have a particularly sweet tooth, I would increase it to 1/2 a cup of sugar.

Now, if you have 35 odd minutes – go and bake yourself some tasty moist treats!

The in-laws’ fig tree is in full season now and we are spoiled with an abundance of beautiful fresh fruit. I decided that I should use some in a cake for a change, and had all sorts of ideas lined up before I hit the fridge … and saw we had almost no butter (gasp!). Leaving aside how we could ever be so lax as to let this happen, the problem was compounded by the fact that this was on Good Friday and the shops were closed!

Luckily, just a few weeks before, I had baked my first ever yoghurt cake: my Zest Test of the London Bakes Lemony Yoghurt Cake. Yoghurt and olive oil to the rescue! My recipe, though heavily based on this original, is tweaked to be slightly less sweet and more structured so it can accommodate the figs. The idea to throw in a bit of rosemary came from this amazing looking Honey and Rosemary Upside Down Fig Cake on Delicious Everyday. So with thanks to my fellow bloggers for their ideas, this Fig and Rosemary Yoghurt cake was born!

The results are gorgeous. Just like the original Lemony version on London Bakes this cake is amazingly moist and moorish, and the hint of rosemary laced through works brilliantly. It’s one of those little additions that delights and surprises on first taste — people will be asking you what is in this cake! 🙂

Fig and Rosemary Yoghurt Cake

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 50 mins

Total time: 1 hour 5 mins

A moist and moorish cake topped with delicate figs and laced with a rosemary surprise.

Ingredients

175g caster sugar

2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves

125g almond meal

50g plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

180g greek or other natural yoghurt

120ml extra virgin olive oil

2 large eggs

For the top:

4 figs, trimmed and halved lengthwise

2 tablespoons brown sugar

To serve:

Fresh figs, quartered (optional)

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 170°C. Grease and line a loaf tin with baking paper (I recommend using a piece large enough lay right across the tin hanging out two sides so you can lift the cake out).

Add the caster sugar and rosemary to a large mixing bowl. Mash together with your fingertips to infuse some rosemary flavour in the sugar.

Add the almond meal, flour, baking powder and salt and mix well.

Whisk the eggs and add them to the mixture along with the yogurt and olive oil. Stir until thoroughly combined.

Pour the batter into the lined loaf tin, then arrange the fig halves, cut side up, on top of the cake.

Bake for 30 minutes, then quickly remove from the oven to top each of the fig halves with a pinch of brown sugar before returning to bake until browned and cooked through, roughly another 20 minutes.

When done carefully remove the cake from the tin (it can stick a little, so run a knife along the edges) and cool on a wire rack for 5-10 minutes before serving.

Some ingredients just don’t last in my kitchen, they demand to be used. As soon as Jane brought home some beautiful little blood oranges, my mind was spinning with ideas. These sweet little gems have a distinct flavour and an amazing visual impact — it’s hard to resist cutting them open just to see the gorgeous colours inside! Some disappeared immediately into salads with finely shaved fennel, but a couple were reserved for new experiments.

I’m happy to report the experiments a success! Adding the fragrant zest to a master stock (adapted from a Kylie Kwong recipe) gave a flavour punch that pairs wonderfully with beef cheeks. Hours of gentle braising give the flavours plenty of time to infuse and stand up to the rich, gelatinous meatiness of the cheeks. A splash of juice in the sauce and garnish of fresh segments add a final zing that lifts the whole dish.

Blood Orange Master Stock Braised Beef Cheeks

Recipe Type: Main

Cuisine: Chinese

Prep time: 20 mins

Cook time: 6 hours

Total time: 6 hours 20 mins

Serves: 6

Rich, meaty beef cheeks meet zesty blood orange.

Ingredients

1.2kg beef cheeks

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 tablespoon blood orange juice

For the garnish:

2 spring onions, julienne

segments of blood orange

For the stock:

3 litres cold water

1 1/2 cups shao hsing wine

3/4 cup dark soy sauce

1/2 cup light soy sauce

3/4 cup brown sugar

6 garlic cloves, crushed

2/3 cup ginger slices

6 spring onions, halved crosswise

1 teaspoon sesame oil

6 star anise

2 cinnamon quills

zest of one blood orange

Instructions

Check your beef cheeks for any silvery sinew on the surface and trim as necessary.

Next prepare the stock: add all ingredients into a large stock pot and bring to the boil. Turn down to barely simmering, add the beef cheeks and braise slowly until tender. This will take at 4-6 hours, so make sure you allow plenty of time!

When the cheeks are almost ready you can prepare the sauce and garnish. First, take 2 cups of the stock and place in a small saucepan with 2 tablespoons of brown sugar. Bring to the boil and reduce by at least half to make a flavourful sauce. (Taste the sauce and reduce further as desired.)

While the sauce is reducing you can prepare your garnish. Julienne the white parts of two spring onions. Carefully cut the remaining peel and pith from the blood orange then segment over a bowl so you can catch the juices.

When the sauce is ready, complete it with a tablespoon of the orange juice, then serve your cheeks with a liberal covering of sauce and garnish of spring onions and blood orange.

Enjoy with a bowl of steamed jasmine rice and some lightly steamed chinese greens.

Notes

You can reuse the stock if you take care to keep it safe. First strain out all the solids, then bring to the boil to kill any nasties. Chill immediately, storing in the fridge if you plan to use it soon (within a few days) or freezer to keep for longer.

Our assumptions about ingredients are sometimes limited by experience. Case in point: some years back I would never have considered using cardamom in a dessert. But why? I’ve been happily eating cinnamon with sugar my whole life! Sometimes it takes a new dish to open up a different perspective: in this case Galub Jamun. These fried dumplings are a popular Indian dessert and usually come laced with spices including cardamom. I guess you could trace back the origins of this rice pudding to my first taste of those sweet little delicacies.

Cardamom Rice Pudding with Caramelised Banana

Recipe Type: Dessert

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 50 mins

Total time: 55 mins

Serves: 6

A rich, spiced pudding with a sweet edge.

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups medium grain rice

800ml milk

250ml cream

2 egg yolks

12 cardamom pods, lightly crushed

1/2 cup caster sugar

3 ripe, firm bananas, halved lengthwise and again crosswise

3 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons brown sugar

Instructions

Combine the milk, cream and cardamom pods in a large saucepan and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and allow to steep for 10 minutes to infuse the cardamom flavour.

Strain the milk mixture to remove the cardamom pods and seeds. Return to the saucepan and add the rice and caster sugar. Bring to the boil again and gently simmer, stirring occasionally, until the rice is just cooked (about 30 minutes). Remove from the heat.

Whisk the egg yolks and combine well with the rice. Cover to retain the heat so the yolks cook while you prepare the bananas.

To caramelise the bananas add the butter and brown sugar to a large frying pan over a medium-high heat. Stir well to form a caramel sauce.

Add the bananas to the sauce and cook for 1 minute on each side, coating them in caramel.

To serve: spoon the rice into bowls, top each with two pieces of banana and drizzle with a little of the remaining caramel sauce.

Notes

Cardamom is a strong flavour which can be too harsh if eaten directly (unless very well ground). That’s why I prefer to infuse the milk and then strain it out, despite this requiring the use of more pods.

This is a rich pudding so the servings need not be large. You can tone it down by omitting the yolks and/or adjusting the balance of cream to milk as you prefer — but I like it nice and custardy!

One great thing about this recipe is it scales up with only a little extra effort, most of the work happens in one large pot!

The weekend before last, Mozart (the resident schnauzer) was well overdue for a trim. This gave us cause to walk to Glebe and drop him off for his epic (3 hour!) grooming. With plenty of time to kill we sought out a nice place to relax and have a light lunch, and spied a sizeable local crowd (always a good sign) at Madame Frou Frou. We tipped ourselves into a couple of their old cinema chairs to take in the quirky diner atmosphere.

For myself I chose the beef burger, and Jane opted for a ham and cheese croissant. Although the croissant is such a simple thing it can be a risky order — I’m always astounded by the ability of cafes to either burn one or fail to melt the cheese (the most talented somehow manage to do both!) — so it was nice to see it properly toasted. The burger, aside from the slightly plastic cheese, hit the spot — especially the beetroot relish. The coffee (with beans from Double Roasters) was also superb. Not bad for a chance walk-in!

With beetroots (and beef) already in the fridge at home I was inspired to come up with a relish of my own. I thought it might be fun to try something with a bit of spice, hence the anise and cloves. It took a bit of balancing work, and is tricky to taste alone (being quite powerful) but once served with the roasted beef fillet it turned out to be a winner!

Spiced Beetroot Relish

Prep time: 20 mins

Cook time: 1 hour 30 mins

Total time: 1 hour 50 mins

Serves: 1 large jar

A sweet, sour and spiced flavour punch, this relish will wake up any dish!

Ingredients

500g beetroot (around 4 medium beets)

2 red onions

1 cup malt vinegar

1/4 cup water

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 lemon

3 star anise

8 cloves

1 tablespoon olive oil

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Trim and clean the beetroot and wrap tightly in foil. Place on a baking tray and roast for 30 minutes (only part cooked).

Meanwhile, peel and slice the onions into 2mm half-circles. Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over a medium-high heat and add the onions, seasoning immediately with a good pinch of salt and pepper.

Saute the onions, stirring, until they are browned. Immediately turn down the heat to low and continue to cook gently for a further 10-15 minutes.

Remove the beetroot from the oven, unwrap and allow to cool until they can be handled. Peel the beets then chop into 2mm matchsticks.

Use a vegetable peeler to remove the zest from the lemon in strips, avoiding the white pith.

Add the beets, vinegar, water, star anise, cloves, sugar, lemon zest and the juice of the lemon to the saucepan with the onions. Bring to the boil then slow to a gentle simmer.

Cook until the liquid has completely reduced, about 50 minutes, at which point the relish should be sticky and delicious!

Remove the zest, anise and (if possible) cloves then store the relish in a sterlisied jar.

Serve with rare roast beef, or add to burgers for a flavour kick!

Notes

To cook the onions down without burning use a very gentle heat and add an occasional splash of water if necessary.

Chopping the beets into matchsticks is time-consuming, but I prefer the texture this way. If you’re in a hurry you could grate them instead.